The present invention relates to an apparatus for optically marking predetermined positions in a stack of documents or for subdividing a stack of documents or the like during the stacking operation.
If papers, documents or other flat objects are to be handled by machine, it may be advantageous to introduce markings for identifying one or more positions of the stacked documents. This may be desirable to separate predetermined numbers of pieces, to set off defective or special parts in the stack, to find a certain position again quickly, or for some other reason. To do this, it is customary to manually insert a mnemonic card which makes it easier to find this position later on. At slow processing speeds, this manual marking is quite workable and sufficient. If, however, a stack of documents is to be read, sorted and made into packages of a predetermined number of pieces by machine, manual marking of the desired positions in the stack would adversely affect the processing speed.